02 August, 2017

The rise of the "megafarm": How British meat is made

Part
6 - Conflict in the countryside

The growth
of intensive farms has caused conflict in the countryside. The Bureau
asked the owner of Penhros Farm in Herefordshire, Richard Williams,
and his neighbour Janet Srodzinski, to share their views.

Janet
Srodzinski lives 235 metres from four chicken sheds near the village
of Kington, Herefordshire:

The first
lot of chickens came August 2015. It’s made my life very difficult.
My life is my garden and my dogs. I’ve got quite a big garden and I
used to love sitting in it. Now if the wind is in the wrong direction
for me, I can’t go outside because of the smell. It’s a horrible
sweet sickly smell. It’s a mix of bedding, chicken droppings,
goodness only knows what. Its weekends as well. I remember Christmas
Day, 2015 - I went out on to my terrace and I was almost sick. The
smell was dreadful all day, Christmas day. Last summer was a bit
better because we had north-westerly winds. I pray for north winds
now.

Then there’s
the lorries. They grind up the hill. It’s so congested. They didn’t
consider the impacts on the local infrastructure at all. The lorries
come at night. Once it was 4 o'clock one morning and it lit the
bedroom up and woke me up. I’ve moved bedrooms now, I don’t sleep
there anymore because I’ll be woken up by the lorries. Its 26
lorries going in and out, 56 movements. Coming every 35 days.

It’s a
lovely county and these sheds have ruined it. My next door neighbour
did a charity cycle run and everywhere they went there was a smell of
chickens. For a tourist area, it’s just not very nice. In my
opinion if we’ve got to have chicken sheds it’s got to be as far
away from humans as possible.

Richard
Williams owns the broiler sheds, growing about 1.3 million birds a
year for major poultry company Cargill:

Ι’ve
lived in the area all my life. My father bought a 60 acre farm in
1960. I just want everyone to get along. I think there’s a
difference between what people who come to the countryside to retire
feel about the land and people who are making a living on it. We can
have huge areas completely protected and have them as monuments. But
is that going to feed the nation?

I worked
with the planning officer and decided this was the best place for the
site. The chickens are quiet. We’re here on a hot day with the wind
blowing in our face and there’s no odour. I’ve planted orchards
in the hill in front of it – and trees directly in front of it. I
also painted the sheds, the feed bins and the plumes juniper green to
make them blend in - even though that was more expensive.

Mrs
Srodinzki complains about the lorries but the A44 is a busy trunk
road. There’s a quarry nearby and a sewage farm. The feed trucks
for this farm – its 12 trailer loads every 47 days. It wasn’t in
planning rules but I asked for a one way system to help traffic and I
asked for the feed trucks to come in the day. Catching the birds [to
take them to slaughter] - yes the trucks come at night and it can be
all night - but that’s because its calmer for the birds. It’s for
animal welfare.

Poultry is
one of the biggest success stories of farming – it isn’t
subsidised. It stands on its own two feet. Cargill is a major
employer in the area. We employ three people and 40 different
companies during each crop. Remember, I’m doing this to provide for
my children. I’m not wealthy by any stretch and I’ve got a lot of
borrowed money. This gives us an opportunity to make profit.
Everything we do is driven by the consumer. We’re making safe,
quality protein grown in the UK.